LETTER
Life Sentence for Youths?
Published: September 18, 2011 (excerpt)
Studies prove that all but a very small percentage of youth — between 5 and 10 percent — mature out of criminal behavior. Therefore, it is inappropriate to impose a final, irrevocable judgment on young people.
P1: A very small percent of youth mature out of criminal behavior.
C: Therefore, it is inappropriate to impose final, irrevocable judgement on young people
I think the 5-10 percent are the ones that dont mature out of criminal behavior
ReplyDeletesee i think that is what professor silliman was saying is just extra information that is unimportant. I thought the premise was the broader topic.
ReplyDeleteI feel that its my job, no - my duty, to tell you that youre wrong. But ill do it in the form of a strong and cogent inductive argument.
ReplyDeleteP1: In logic: 90% of the time, girls are wrong 100% of the time
P2: You are a girl in logic
C: Therefore, you are wrong
yeah im not really a fan of that statement... and i disagree with you. That just really wasn't a very nice thing to say, seen as how all i am trying to do is learn some logic and maybe enjoy it as well.
ReplyDeleteWhich part did you disagree with?
ReplyDeletei disagree with the fact that just because im a girl makes me wrong. That is not true.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in the way that you set up the premises and i also disagree with josh pretty uncalled for.
ReplyDeleteI am hardly in a strong moral position to disapprove of over-the-top foolishness, but I'm sure we can all (including of course Josh) agree that Josh's little joke commits an ad hominem fallacy (check the toolkit!).
ReplyDeleteHis initial observation was correct, however. Sam's reconstruction of the argument inverted the meaning of the first premise.
So is this a strong induction? Are there suppressed premises that would clarify it?
I would just say that i have to change my premise, but yes, i do believe this is a strong induction... What do you think?
ReplyDelete@ sb - oh..ok
ReplyDeleteI dont believe the origional conclusion makes this induction strong. There is no common placeholder to say that a 25 year old isnt 'young'. At the same time, what do we consider a 'mature' person?
I thought this was a strong inductive argument, although I would liked to have seen more from the article. That would probably help clarify the premise, and the cogency.
ReplyDeleteJosh is correct, once again, that 'youth' is an ambiguous term. Interpreting charitably, however, we can give the author some leeway on this (much as we might like to know precisely what age we're talking about). Likewise, the meaning in context of 'mature' is clear enough to get along on -- it means, minimally, that they grow up to become something other than career criminals.
ReplyDeleteSo the argument looks quite strong to me. I don't think we can test for cogency without seeing both the sources of the data and better-defined terms, however.